Singapore must embrace change to face the twin challenges of global population aging and relentless technology, said the second minister for Singapore’s Ministry of Manpower, Josephine Teo, in her speech at the Milken Institute Asia Summit held last week.
She acknowledged that advances in artificial intelligence and machine learning will increase the prevalence of workplace automation, and that the impact will be widely felt across the whole spectrum of jobs.
Teo cited, however, a recent study by the OECD that only about 9% of jobs stood a high chance of being substantially automated – a figure far lower than previous estimates. “Concerns about massive job losses may be overstated,” she said.
She also cited examples of technology resulting, instead, in a net creation of jobs. “New job roles such as digital marketers and cybersecurity specialists have emerged. E-commerce may have displaced retail workers in brick-and-mortar stores but it also created many more jobs in supply chain management.”
She warned, however, that the net addition “available is comforting only to the extent that displaced workers can find ways to access the new opportunities… Otherwise, we will have an unhappy situation of rising unemployment coupled with below-potential growth for businesses.”
Singapore’s approach to these developments is to embrace technology and innovation. . “We have a real interest in helping businesses be more productive and manpower-lean. . It is an activist approach with initiatives relevant to both businesses and individuals.”
Supporting these points, she enumerated the following government initiatives:
- More than 20 Industry Transformation Maps (ITMs) have been charted together with stakeholders. This focuses on digitalisation and identifies the skills gaps measures for the future workforce;
- The SkillsFuture initiative has been helping jobseekers and incumbents in every sector have a customised framework to guide them as they advance in their careers;
- The government has identified five growth sectors that would offer considerable potential for experienced professionals, managers, executives and technicians (PMETs). They are healthcare, financial and insurance services, infocomms technology, professional services and wholesale trade. These will account for half of the 25-40 thousand new jobs created annually for the new few years.
Teo emphasized that as important as the strategies is the implementation of these plans. “We also need to be nimble and keep evolving our specific measures,” she said, and added they have to have empathy for individuals and businesses that would be stressed by the need to transform and adapt.
“It is about both businesses and people finding new ways forward and winning together,” she said.
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